Discussion

To Wine Or Not To Wine....

Even though I consider myself at least a foodie and at most a gourmet, but there are very few wines that I care for and even fewer that I outright like. I know there are some food snobs that would claim that you can't be a gourmet if you don't like wine, but I disagree. What do you think?

I don't think a person has to be an oenophile in order to be able to call himself a gourmet/gourmand/foodie-type person. I personally like, not love, wine, and mostly find that I can enjoy a meal just as well without a glass of it as with.

There are lots of cuisines in which the drinking of alcoholic beverages along with a meal is more celebratory or special, and I don't think those cuisines are any less worthy of exploration or credit than those where it is commonplace.

Well, I disagree -- seriously. This is not because I am not a big wine fan, which I am not, but this is far from the reason.

The premise of the statement is very narrow and biased -- very much European based. It essentially suggests that other cultures which do not heavily drink wine cannot possibly be gourmet, like the Chinese, the Indian, the Japanese....etc What is even worse is to firmly say non-alcoholic drinkers like the Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists can never be a food lover. You get the idea. Ask those food snobs you spoke of if they truely believe they can exclude more than 4/5th of the world population based on one version of alcoholic drink. One version.

Imagine the other way around, rice wine is prominetely featured in East Asian countries. What if someone said you cannot be a gourmet unless you like rice wine. What nonsense is that?